


Speaking to Godeaux

by baroque_mongoose



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Crafts, F/M, Mild Language, Mystery, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 19:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13553808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroque_mongoose/pseuds/baroque_mongoose
Summary: Trelawney Thorpe is very happy to get an assignment that has been taken away from Lord Moonbark on the grounds of his inability to solve it.  Needless to say, she brings in her fiancé to help.





	Speaking to Godeaux

I am normally an early riser; but stomach upsets can happen to even the most robust of us, and I had suffered a bad night with one until I was finally able to get to sleep at about half past four. This explains why I was woken at a quarter to ten by someone knocking on the front door, which is directly underneath my bedroom. I went to the window, pulled aside the curtains, and found myself looking down upon the brim of a large purple hat which was extremely familiar, even if not from that precise angle.

I opened the window. “Good morning, darling,” I said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t well last night. Let me just get dressed, and I’ll come down and open the door.”

Trelawney – for, of course, it was she – looked up at me. “Are you all right now, Ardsley dear? I’ve got something important to tell you, but if you’re ill...”

Something important; but, clearly, not something she was planning to tell me if I wasn’t well enough. That meant some kind of action was going to be involved. Not only that, but I could tell from her face that she was fizzing with excitement. It could mean only one thing: she had a case, and she wanted me in on it. I grinned.

“Still tired,” I replied, “but that I can handle. I’m no longer ill, and I’m pretty certain I’m not contagious. Five minutes!”

“Squee!” she exclaimed. Whatever she had, it had to be good. I’ve never heard her say that before.

I dressed quickly, hurried downstairs, and let her in. She bounded through to the sitting room, perched on the arm of the sofa (that is how she generally prefers to sit; it means she can get up as fast as possible when required), and beamed at me.

“So,” I said. “Tell me about this case, my love. Can I get you a cup of tea while we’re talking?”

She laughed. “You never disappoint me, not even when you’ve been ill. Yes, of course I have a case. Yes, of course I want you in on it. No, thank you – I’ve just been drinking hot chocolate with Celia. I was desperate to go and call on you, but she intercepted me just as I was about to leave the house. She’s just got engaged, and nothing would do for her but to tell me all about it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Engaged? That’s very sudden. Who’s the… er… lucky man?”

“Young Lord Purbright. I’ve met him. Nice but dim. Still, Celia’s happy, and that’s the main thing.” She shifted position slightly. “Now, this case. The first thing you need to know is that we’ve got it… well, _I’ve_ got it, but I made it quite clear I’d be bringing you in on it… because it was taken off Moonbark.”

The other eyebrow joined the first. “ _Real_ ly?” I could not suppress another grin.

“Oh, yes, indeed. The old fool can’t solve it. Probably got distracted by some lovely young lady,” she added, with a snarl.

“Which reminds me,” I said. “Violetta tells me you were hanging about in the wings waiting for him to get off the scene before you came out to greet me. She wanted to know why. I said I didn’t know, but I could guess. If he’s laid _one finger_ on you...”

“Oh, don’t worry, Ardsley. I assure you that if he had, you’d have nothing left to do but go and jump on the remains. He knows that perfectly well, which is why he hasn’t. It didn’t stop him trying his luck, though.” Her lips tightened into a line. “And some of the things he said about you in the process...”

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about those. He knows I’m good at what I do, and he’s even honest enough to admit it when it suits him. There’s nothing he could possibly say about me that would make me dislike the ghastly old lecher any more than I already do. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Well, don’t be. One false move from Moonbark, and he won’t even be history. He’ll be _geography_. As in, scattered over a wide area.”

“If that ever happens, tell me. I want to come and watch,” I replied. “But I’m now really fascinated about this case. Moonbark’s several kinds of a cad, but he’s no fool, however much he likes to act like one. If it’s stumped him, it’s got to be a good one.”

She nodded. “That’s what I think, too. Well, now. What do you know about Lady Henrietta Barclay and Mlle Aurélie Flambeau?”

“H’mm,” I said. “Lady Henrietta is a minor spark who is very jealous of Ada, Lady Lovelace, no doubt because Lady Lovelace is ten times the spark she will ever be. Mlle Flambeau is tutor and governess in the household of the Earl of Sarum. There is some suspicion that she is a foreign agent, but if she is, then she is very clever. There isn’t enough real evidence to pin on her, and, even if she is an agent, we have absolutely nothing to say whose agent she is.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to brief you on the background.” Trelawney sighed. “Spark or not, Lady Henrietta is such an idiot. If she knew Ada even slightly, she’d be too busy feeling sorry for her to be jealous. Talk about a tortured soul. Of course, having a father like that didn’t help.”

Having once met Lady Lovelace at a social occasion, this information came as no surprise. I’d seen her go into spark fugue while maudlin drunk. She was a brilliant spark, but clearly not a happy person. “Indeed,” I agreed. “But what I don’t yet know is what these two ladies have to do with each other.”

“Well,” said Trelawney. “Old Moonbark was trailing Flambeau, trying to get something on her. Naturally he sent other people most of the time; you don’t act as someone’s permanent shadow if you want to avoid suspicion yourself. But she went to a tea room, and he decided to do the job himself on that occasion. There, she met Lady Henrietta, whom she didn’t know; Lady Henrietta had to identify herself to her. It transpired that Lady Henrietta had written Flambeau a letter asking her to come and meet her at this tea room, and Flambeau was rather disgruntled to find that the reason she’d invited her was to try to poach her from Lord Sarum on her sister’s behalf.”

“You mean the reason she _gave_ for inviting her, I suppose,” I clarified.

“Absolutely. Because something else happened. When they sat down together, Lady Henrietta opened a small notebook and wrote a few words in it, then left it lying open on the table throughout the conversation. Moonbark thought that was rather odd, so he contrived to get a look at that notebook. Shall I tell you what was written there?”

“Of course.”

“Just three words. ‘Speak to Godeaux.’” She spelt out the name for me.

I frowned. “Who’s Godeaux?”

“That’s what we’d _all_ very much like to know,” replied Trelawney. “Moonbark’s been sent looking for them, so we don’t have to worry about that. Our job, the one Moonbark failed to do, is to work out the big picture – exactly what is going on here.”

“Right,” I said. “And what have you come up with so far?”

She pursed her lips. “It’s… puzzling. It was pretty obvious that the two women hadn’t previously met; it’s true that Lady Henrietta identifying herself could have been a big act just in case they were being watched, but Moonbark’s good at reading faces. Flambeau was mystified by the whole thing. She hadn’t been expecting it.”

“And Lady Henrietta hasn’t done anything suspicious before?” I asked. I was fairly sure she hadn’t, but one cannot know everything.

“No. But there’s always a first time.”

“Has anyone had a word with her? After all, she’s the only person in this entire charade who definitely knows who Godeaux is.”

“Oh, Moonbark did the usual. Sent her a message purporting to be from Godeaux. Got a reply simply telling him to talk to Flambeau. She’s giving nothing away.”

I closed my eyes and thought hard for a few minutes, trying to put myself in Lady Henrietta’s place. Let’s see. I am trying to make contact with someone I know or believe to be a foreign agent; therefore, it’s a reasonable guess that this person will be watched. So I arrange to meet them in a public place and have a conversation with them about some total red herring, while the real information I want to give them is…

...hah. I know what _I’d_ have done.

My eyes snapped open. “Trelawney, dear,” I said, “did Moonbark happen to mention which of the two ladies picked up that notebook when they left?”

As ever, she hit the ground running. “No! And you’re right. That’s the most important piece of information in the whole case, and the fool missed it. If it was Lady Henrietta, then we’re on the right track already; but if it was Flambeau...”

“Exactly. If it was Flambeau, then Godeaux was nothing more than a scrap of bait for Moonbark to swallow, and he took it, hook and all. The real information is in the rest of that notebook.”

I nodded. “Right. So now we have a theory.”

“And a theory,” said Trelawney with a huge smile, “is never any good until you can test it. So what are we waiting for?”

“Me to get my coat,” I replied, smiling back, “and that won’t take a minute. What about Jack, by the way? Will he be coming with us?”

“No. Jack Tarr isn’t always the sharpest pencil in the box, but tact is something he does have. He requested a holiday. Didn’t want to be an awkward third.”

“Oh, that was rather decent of him. I hope he enjoys his holiday. Do we know where he’s gone?”

“Scuba-diving around Cambridge. I think he’ll have tremendous fun. Anyway… your coat, darling!”

Trelawney drives an elegant emerald green triphibious vehicle which, of course, she designed and built herself. It is a beautiful machine, but it is also so obviously sparky that I should be quite reluctant to get into the thing if I were not deeply in love with its creator. Still, it got us to Salisbury without a problem, and by the time we arrived we had an initial plan plus a back-up.

The initial plan was entirely in my hands, so I lost no time in setting about implementing it. Like any spy, I have many personas I can use when the occasion demands, but the “trusted retainer” one is still a favourite of mine; it is, after all, the one I have most experience of using. I went to the servants’ entrance, courteously greeted the wide-eyed young kitchenmaid who opened the door to me, and asked to see Mlle Flambeau, as I had been sent to her with a personal message.

“Who shall I tell her it is, sir?” she asked.

“I am Lady Henrietta Barclay’s butler,” I replied. “The name is Wooster, but that hardly matters. The important thing is that I have come from her ladyship.”

“Just a minute, then, Mr Wooster, sir.” The kitchenmaid curtseyed and scuttled off, and through a half-open door somewhere I could hear voices.

“...wants to speak to Miss Flambeau, ma’am...”

“...ooh, he’s ever so polite. A real gent. And handsome, too. Bet all her ladyship’s maids are after him!”

“Aww. Why not me? I let him in.”

“Aww.”

From this I gathered that the kitchenmaid was not to be my escort; and, indeed, a few moments later, the housekeeper herself arrived, keys jingling at her waist. “Mr Wooster?” she enquired. She was a tall, thin, straight-backed lady with iron-grey hair in a tight bun. Something about her general air reminded me faintly of old Baron Wulfenbach.

I bowed. “I am. And whom do I have the honour of addressing?”

“Mrs Jelf, sir. I’ve come to take you up to see Mlle Flambeau.”

“That is most kind of you, ma’am. I’m flattered indeed that you should have come yourself.”

“Well,” she replied. “I’m not sending any of the girls with you. Millie said you were handsome, and I’m quite sure a gentleman like yourself doesn’t want to be bothered with unwanted admirers.”

“Indeed not, ma’am. I am engaged to be married,” I replied, truthfully. “Thank you very much for your consideration.” Of course, it was not consideration for me at all; she simply wanted to spare the maids from any brief but painful attacks of unrequited affection. I liked her for that. She looked stern, but evidently cared about her staff.

I followed Mrs Jelf up a winding back staircase and out onto a wide landing lined with oil paintings and occasional statuary. His lordship, or her ladyship, or both, had considerable taste. I recognised the styles of a number of talented artists; but a butler is generally not expected to know about art in detail, and so I kept silent on that subject. Instead, I merely said, “Nice statues.”

“Yes, sir, they’re that; but some of them are the dickens to clean,” replied Mrs Jelf. “See those two young fellows wrestling there? That’s the one I make the maids clean if they’ve been unruly.” She gave me a little confidential half-smile.

“And are they often unruly?” I asked.

“No, sir; for the most part, they’re as good a bunch as you could wish for. That’s why nine times out of ten I clean it myself.”

“I am most tempted to tell my lady about you, ma’am,” I replied. “But I think you are happy here and not interested in moving to a new situation.”

“You’re quite correct, sir; but I do appreciate the compliment, and I could do a lot worse than return it. Our butler, Mr Beardmore, is a little conscious of his position, shall we say. Now you, you’ve no airs and graces at all, and that’s not common for such a young man in a responsible position like you’ve got.”

I bowed. “Thank you, ma’am. You are most kind.”

“I tell things like I see them, sir. Now this is Mlle Flambeau’s suite. When you’ve given your message, just ring the bell if you need someone to come and show you out.”

“Thank you, Mrs Jelf. I believe I can find the way myself, but it is good to know that I have that option.”

Well, even if the plan failed, I now had a friend in the Earl’s house, and possibly even a potential Service recruit. Mrs Jelf was clearly sharp-witted. I took my leave of her and tapped on Mlle Flambeau’s door. It was opened by another maid, suggesting that the Earl and Countess had an unusual amount of respect for education. I have never seen a personal servant allocated to a tutor in any other household.

Aurélie Flambeau was Parisian by birth. She was small, very dark, and energetic. She was also very untidy, at least in her own space where she could do what she liked; knowing her reputation as an educator, I expected that she managed to keep things reasonably tidy in the classroom. She was untidy in that special way that screams “creative”. Half-finished sewing projects were draped across the backs of chairs. On the table were several small pots of paint and glue, reels of thread, pots of beads, pairs of scissors, craft knives, rulers and other tools; and a loom with a couple of dozen square weaving tablets attached to it, threaded up with brightly coloured warps which were in the process of weaving a braid with an elegant Celtic-inspired design. There was a lace pillow on the sofa covered with a deep fuchsia pink cloth, against which the circular piece of white lace that was being made stood out admirably. A few new lace bobbins lay on the table near the loom, waiting to be equipped with the beaded wire that served as both decoration and weight. One might, from this description, be tempted to wonder if she ever finished anything; but she clearly did, as witnessed by the cushion in one of the armchairs which bore an ornamental baroque design heavily embroidered in dark red and gold, with her initials worked into one corner. The gown she was wearing must also have been one of her own creations, since its bodice incorporated a good deal of tablet-woven braid not too unlike the one currently on the loom. It made an unusual, and very effective, decoration, and I made a mental note to suggest it as a possible hobby to Trelawney. She is not averse to lace on a gown, since she does have her frilly side, but I felt she might appreciate having the option of a trim less likely to catch on things.

I bowed. “Good of you to see me, Mlle Flambeau. Lady Henrietta sent me to ask if you had picked up her notebook when you had tea together, and, if so, to collect it. She missed it, and went back to the tea room to look for it; but nobody knew anything of it, so she thought you must have it.”

“I see,” she replied. “And do you have a note for me from her, Mr Wooster?”

I blinked in feigned astonishment. “With all respect, ma’am, it’s only a notebook,” I said. “I’d expect her to send one if she’d asked me to pick up anything of any value, but why should she bother writing me a note for you about a trifle like that?”

“H’mm,” she said. “In that case, please tell Lady Henrietta that I shall be very happy to return the notebook next time we meet. I have alternate Wednesday afternoons free.”

“Why, certainly, ma’am,” I replied, injecting just the right amount of bewilderment into my voice. “Whatever you say. I’m sure she’ll be very happy to see you again.”

“The pleasure will be mutual.” She turned to the maid, and addressed her in French. “Suzette, please show the gentleman out.”

Trelawney was waiting for me in the triphib a little way from the house. “How did it go?” she asked.

“Quite well, as a matter of fact,” I replied. “I wasn’t really expecting to get the notebook, though, of course, if I had, it would have been perfect. What I _have_ got is information. Flambeau definitely has the thing. I was right.” I quickly explained how I knew this.

“Well done, Ardsley! Now, what do you think? Do we go for the original Plan B, or do we deliver Flambeau’s message, wait for the pair of them to meet up again, and requisition the notebook as evidence in the name of Her Undying Majesty?”

“We go for the original Plan B, I think,” I replied promptly. “The other idea’s tempting, I’ll admit; but it may take a long time, it’s unnecessarily showy, and, most importantly, we still aren’t clear on what that notebook is evidence _of_.”

“Hmpf. We do know it’s got to be evidence of something, or she’d have let you take it.”

“We don’t absolutely know,” I reminded her. “Certainly it looks very likely; but she could just be a suspicious sort of person, especially if she’s aware that she’s being watched.”

Trelawney nodded. “Very well. Plan B it is, then. You can have the back seat. Make yourself comfortable.”

I demurred. “Shouldn’t you have the back? The front doesn’t look very comfortable to me.”

She grinned. “You haven’t yet seen this thing in dormer mode, have you?”

Indeed I had not, and I should perhaps not have been surprised when she calmly pulled a couple of levers and various hitherto unsuspected structures started to unfold. Within a minute or two, we had a pair of cosy-looking day beds. Trelawney reached under the driving seat, pulled out a tartan blanket, and tossed it over to me. Then she produced a similar blanket from the same place and wrapped herself up in it.

“Sleep well,” she said, flopping down onto her side as she spoke.

“You too,” I replied, but she was already asleep. I think Trelawney has some cat in her somewhere.

I followed her example, wrapping myself up in my own blanket and lying down on the day bed. It took me a little longer than Trelawney to go to sleep, but not very much longer, as I was still tired from the unpleasant events of the night before. It seemed no time before I emerged from a very strange dream in which Master Gil was earnestly lecturing a flamingo to find Trelawney leaning over me, gently shaking my shoulder.

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” she whispered. “Three o’clock and all’s well. You’re smiling – what were you dreaming about?”

“Not you, alas. Just Master Gil talking to a flamingo.”

She laughed. “And did it answer him?”

“No. It just looked a little embarrassed.”

“How can you tell if a flamingo is embarrassed? They’re already pink… no, wait. Don’t answer that one. We need to focus.”

“I have never heard a spark utter those words before,” I said. “Darling, I’m proud of you.”

I had, of course, gleaned as much information as I could about the layout of the house, and so before too long we were in the pantry, having got in through the high window at the back with the aid of a couple of Trelawney’s gadgets. We had chosen the pantry because it was the one place where we could be quite sure nobody would be on night duty. Trelawney opened the door a crack and peered out cautiously.

“All clear,” she whispered. “Come on!”

The kitchen was quite deserted, apart from a small rat which scurried away as soon as it saw us. Pale moonlight gleamed softly from the polished copper pans, giving us the bare minimum of light we needed to navigate by vision rather than touch. We glided silently across the chilly stone flags to the door which led to the back staircase up which Mrs Jelf had taken me several hours earlier; and once that door was safely closed behind us, Trelawney risked using the torch she had brought. It helped a good deal, since the stairs had little natural light.

“What’s the story if your Mrs Jelf spots us?” she asked.

I thought briefly. “I, loyal but not necessarily very bright retainer that I am...”

Trelawney snorted. “You, first-class actor that you are...”

“Whichever you like, my love. I was baffled by the fact that Flambeau wouldn’t give me the notebook, went away and thought about it, and eventually concluded that Lady Henrietta must have written something unwise in it that could, perhaps, make her a target for blackmail. After all, it’s widely known that she hates Lady Lovelace, so it’s not surprising if I worry that she may have written something derogatory and potentially actionable about her. And I do not want my unwise employer to fall victim to her own actions, so I have decided to take steps to retrieve the notebook myself.”

“Excellent story,” replied Trelawney, with approval. “And I spotted you in town, and, being a friend of Lady Henrietta’s, I recognised you and you told me the whole story, so I agreed to help you. After all, I’m known; I can’t exactly disguise who I am.”

I nodded. “And if I’ve read Mrs Jelf correctly, then that will get, at the very least, her non-interference. It may even get her co-operation, though I wouldn’t count on that; she’s a shrewd old lady.”

But there was no sign of Mrs Jelf, nor of anyone else, as we stole along the wide landing with the moonlight helping us once more. Once we were at the door to Flambeau’s suite, Trelawney picked the lock almost noiselessly, and we slipped inside, closing the door behind us. Trelawney then crept away into the interior of the suite, while I had a short but agonising wait.

All was well, though. She reappeared and switched on the torch. “Good job you were able to tell me about the maid,” she said, in a normal voice. “If we hadn’t known about her, she could have wrecked the whole thing. As it is… one nice little C-gas capsule for her, and one for her mistress. They’ll have the best night’s sleep they’ve had in ages. We’re doing them a favour, really.”

“They won’t find the capsule shells?” I asked.

“Oh, come on, Ardsley! I’m a better spark than that. No. They disintegrate naturally in the course of a couple of hours once the gas has been released. They’ll have no idea anything odd has happened until Flambeau discovers she can’t find that notebook.”

“That’s assuming we _can_ find it,” I pointed out. “This place looks like an explosion in a craft shop.”

She beamed at me. “And that, my darling, is why we’re going to use our brains. Two people as clever as we are can surely work out where she’ll have put it, without sorting through apparently every colour of thread you can buy in Salisbury.”

“If it were me,” I replied mildly, “I’d be sleeping on it. Did you check?”

“Of course. Ditto the maid. Not there, and not in the traditional undie drawer either. Tell you what, though. She makes her own. They’ve got style.”

“Did I need to know that?” I asked, a little embarrassed.

“Well… no… not as such. But I thought I might perhaps make something similar myself. You know – for when we’re married.”

I coughed. “Focus!”

“I _am_ focusing, darling.”

“Not you. Me!”

“Snerk.”

“Yes. Well.” I indicated the loom on the table. “While we’re on the subject of making things, it occurred to me that you might like to give that a go. It makes some rather nice trims. She had something quite similar all over her bodice.”

“H’mm.” Trelawney turned the torch on it. “Tablet weaving. And she’s using a loom for it.”

“Is that unusual?” I asked.

She shrugged. “A lot of people do. Well, I say a lot, but what I really mean is a substantial proportion of people who do this lovely and somewhat obscure craft. It’s not strictly necessary, but it does save tying your work to the doorknob or the newel post or some other handy fixture, so it makes it more portable.” She examined the work more closely. “She’s good at this. That’s a complex design – takes a lot of mucking about with the orientation of the tablets.”

“I see you know something about it already.”

“Indeed. It’s something I have done in the past; it’s just that I always seem to be too busy to pick up my tablets these days. But this is definitely inspiring me to have another go… if I can find where I put the tablets, of course. I may not be this untidy, but I do have a tendency to put things away in drawers and forget them.”

“I’ll buy you some more, if you want,” I offered. “And a loom like this, too, if you’d like one.”

“Actually… that would be lovely, Ardsley. Thank you. If I had a loom, I could carry my work around with me and do it in odd moments.”

“Where would you get a thing like this?” I asked. “I’ve never seen one.”

“I imagine the maker’s name would be underneath,” she replied. “But you don’t pick up another crafter’s work without asking them...”

There was a sudden pause. We exchanged glances.

“Heh,” said Trelawney. She picked up the loom; and there, indeed, on the table underneath it, was a small notebook. I took it, riffled through the pages, and soon found one which read “Speak to Godeaux”. The opposite page was blank; but the rest of the pages in the notebook were not.

“It’s all in code,” I said.

“Fine. We can crack it,” replied Trelawney happily. “Let me just take down the name and address of the manufacturer from under this loom, and then we’ll put everything back exactly how we found it. Oh, what a tangled web we do indeed weave!”

We made our way back to the triphib without incident, and very soon we were heading back to Londinium with the precious notebook tucked safely in an inside pocket of Trelawney’s waistcoat. She dropped me at my house, promising to come back in the afternoon so that we could go through the notebook together. I was glad she had specified the afternoon, since, despite the long nap earlier, I was still in need of a lot of sleep.

Consequently, when I heard a knock on the door at about a quarter to one, I jumped up from the table with alacrity and hurried to answer it. I was disappointed, and somewhat mystified, to find that it was not Trelawney at all, but a policeman. He raised his helmet to me politely.

“’scuse me, sir,” he said. “Sorry to bother you and all, but would you be Mr Wooster?”

“I would,” I replied. “Why?”

“If I could come in for a few moments, I’ll explain,” he promised. “My name’s Forrest, sir. PC Matthew Forrest, number twelve-ninety-five.” He pointed to the embroidered patch on his shoulder.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr Forrest. By all means come in.” I showed him into the sitting room, silently giving thanks that I had got as far as the pudding, which was a cold peach flan. I am happy to help Her Undying Majesty’s police force when I can, but less so if I have a meal getting cold at the time. I am, after all, only human.

“Very good. And was you, sir, in Salisbury yesterday?”

I saw no point in denying it. “I was,” I replied.

“And did you, sir, go and speak to a young ’ooman by the name of Madder-moi-zelle Flambeau on the subject of a notebook what belonged to Lady Henrietta Barclay?”

“Indeed I did,” I said. “But she wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Well, no, sir, ’cos you said as you worked for her ladyship, and you don’t, do you?”

“No, Mr Forrest. I work for Her Undying Majesty. Please take a look at these papers.” I extracted my identity papers from an inner pocket, unfolded them, and put them down in front of him.

Forrest’s reaction was completely unexpected. He laughed. In fact, he positively guffawed. I blinked.

“I suspect I’m not in possession of a piece of highly significant information here,” I said. “Otherwise, I should have perhaps a glimmer of an idea of what you are finding so amusing.”

“Ha! Sorry, sir, it’s just… heh! Oh, this is priceless. Wait’ll I tell the missus. It’s just…” He took a deep breath. “Madder-moi-zelle Flambeau reported you for being a spy, sir.”

I stared at him. “She did what?”

“Well, sir, that notebook went missing. So she put two and two together, if you follow what I mean, and decided it was all some kind of elaborate ruse to get the notebook to you via her, and she thought that notebook probably meant no good, so she wasn’t going to let you have it. See, it was all in some sort of code, sir. Madder-moi-zelle Flambeau couldn’t make any sense out of it. So she decided you had to be some sort of foreign agent what had somehow managed to dupe Lady Henrietta into working with him. She doesn’t seem to rate Lady Henrietta’s intelligence, sir, spark or no.”

“Ha! Oh, you’re right, Mr Forrest. That _is_ priceless. Wait till I tell my fiancée!”

He handed back the papers. “I suppose all this means I don’t get the right to ask what the bleedin’ hell actually is going on?”

“Sorry, Mr Forrest,” I replied, with genuine regret. “You get the right to ask; but I don’t get the right to tell you.”

“That’s fair enough, sir,” he said equably. “But, just for my own peace of mind… did you take that notebook or not?”

“I did. But I can’t show it to you. For one thing it’s not here, and for another thing this case is… ah… rather out of your hands, I’m afraid.” I gave him an encouraging smile. “But if you ever happen to leave the Force, do by all means call round. I may well be able to help you gain alternative employment.”

“You mean when I get kicked out for calling bu… er… mulch on a superior officer?”

“Mr Forrest,” I replied sincerely, “if _that_ happens, I _especially_ want to see you.”

“Right you are, sir. Thanks. Well, sorry I troubled you. I’ll just go back to the station and declare the case closed.”

When Trelawney did arrive, I told her what had happened; and, when we had both finished laughing about it, I observed, “So either Flambeau is completely innocent, or else she’s very clever indeed. Either way, she has style.”

“You know what?” said Trelawney. “I’m going with innocent. I’m afraid I have an awful confession to make, darling. I couldn’t resist getting started on the decoding, and you know how it is when you start something like that...”

“Oh dear. Yes, I do. I’ll admit I _was_ looking forward to helping you work on it, but I do know exactly how that one goes… and, of course, the really important thing is that it’s decoded.” I paused. “So, what does it say?”

She passed me a couple of sheets of foolscap fastened together with a brass paper fastener. I read through them carefully, then handed them back.

“Lady Henrietta is quite mad,” I said, flatly. The message was long and rambling, but the gist of it was that Lady Henrietta had heard that Flambeau was a foreign agent and wanted to help her kidnap Lady Lovelace and spirit her away to whatever country she worked for.

“She’s a spark. We’re all mad,” Trelawney pointed out.

“Yes, but there’s mad and mad. Your insanity really only shows when you’re inventing hats. And… well, there _was_ your choice of fiancé, but perhaps I’d better keep quiet about that.”

“Ardsley Wooster, if you don’t stop doing yourself down, I shall invent you one of my mad hats and make you wear it in public,” she threatened. “You are a good, kind, decent man who also happens to be very, very clever. But… you’re right about Lady Henrietta. She is definitely a few gears short of a drive mechanism.”

“And Flambeau… I think you’re probably right about her,” I said. “If she were a foreign agent, she’d either have the skills to decode the message herself, or she’d have sent it straight to someone who had. She wouldn’t just have left it sitting under her tablet loom while she tried to decide what to do with it. And if she’d decoded it herself, she’d have destroyed it to make sure nobody else could do the same. Basically, if she’s a foreign agent, she’s a bad enough one that we’d have easily caught her well before now.”

Trelawney nodded. “Right. So that just leaves the question of what, if anything, we do about Lady Henrietta.”

I considered. “I’d vote for simply keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t harm Lady Lovelace in any way. Other than that… I mean, she’s just done something pretty stupid, but it was nothing arrestable.”

“You sure? Isn’t it technically treason?”

“Well, technically, it probably is,” I conceded. “Lady Lovelace certainly counts as a national asset. But this…!” I gestured at the foolscap sheets. “This isn’t the behaviour of a cold-blooded criminal. Bluntly, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect from a child who’d taken against one of her playmates and been reading too many penny sparklies.”

“True.” Trelawney paused. “And, if we just recommend that she’s kept under discreet surveillance… well. You know who they’ll probably make do it, don’t you?”

I grinned. “Moonbark! And that is, of course, a point. Someone really ought to let him know that this Godeaux person doesn’t exist.”

“Yes. Someone should, shouldn’t they? I wonder who they’ll ask to do it?”

“Oh, I’ll do it,” I said. “Much as I dislike having anything to do with the bounder, it goes against the grain to leave even him on a wild-goose chase once we know that’s what it is. That would be a nasty, petty thing to do.”

“See? I don’t just love you for your brain,” she said happily.


End file.
